


sunlight

by a_novel_idea



Series: drink up [1]
Category: Preacher (Comics), Preacher (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, M/M, Possessive Behavior, mentioned bloodplay, mentioned feeding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:06:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7402009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_novel_idea/pseuds/a_novel_idea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(or, Five Times Cass Won't, and One Time He Does)</p>
<p>Cass won't drink from him, and Jesse doesn't understand why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sunlight

**I.**

"You don't know what you're asking for, Padre."

Jesse Custer is sitting in the pew across from him, mouth relaxed with drink and eyes dark with something Cassidy hasn't ever been able to name in his one hundred-nineteen years. His limbs are loose, and he's long abandoned his preacher's collar in favor of undoing the top few buttons to try and stave off the sweltering Texas heat. Cassidy thinks the preacher looks like sin personified. 

"Give it to me straight then," Jesse says, lifting the bottle of 'borrowed' communion wine to his lips.

Cassidy pauses. He's never had to explain to someone why this is a bad idea; most people just take his word for it.

"There are a lot of reasons," he says instead.

"Like what?"

Cassidy growls, he knows he does.

"Drinking from me has got to be better than starving yourself when you can't find a meal," Jesse continues.

Cassidy is standing over Jesse before the preacher has time to blink. He reaches down and wraps his hand around the back of Jesse's head, fingers sliding through disheveled hair, palm wide enough that he can slip his thumb under the other man's chin and force his head back. 

"Drinking from you..." ...drinking from Jesse, Cass knows, would light a fire that went out long ago. He'd drink, and he'd drink, and he'd drink, until there wasn't anything left but a cold, lifeless corpse, and Cassidy would never let that happen. Jesse would be like whiskey on his tongue, and he'd have him all, and there'd be nothing left. What would he do then? What would he do without Jesse Custer, without the preacher's battle scars, and his too gentle hands that long for fights he'd promised to leave behind, and that look in his eye that spoke of how Cass was still human to him, even if he did require a little extra nourishment? Could he give up this one good thing he had actually stumbled into?

"Don't ask me again, Jesse Custer," he says softly, moving his hand away quick enough that the dark haired man's chin drops to his chest before he's realized what's happened. 

When Jesse looks up, Cassidy is gone.

**II.**

"Explain it to me," Jesse says, even more plastered that the last time the subject was brought up.

"Explain what, Padre?"

"Why you won't let me feed you."

"I told you not to ask again."

"I'm not asking for the action, just the why."

"Because friends don't eat friends, that's why."

**III.**

"There are others," he says quietly; Jesse is passed out in a pew several rows behind him, "who are much, much older, and much, much richer than little ol' me, and these religious vigilante freaks get wind of them and they get wiped off the face of the earth, same as us here in the dirt."

Cassidy pauses long enough that he expects to hear bells chime the early morning hour, then he remembers that their church doesn't have bells. 

"They have everything: the best security you can buy, cars, houses, drugs enough to kill a few dozen horses, and it's all gone. In the blink of a mite's eye, everything they've spent centuries building burns to the ground. But it's not just them. It's the kitchen staff, the gardener, the driver, anyone who ever worked for them, anyone who's ever done them a favor..... anyone who has ever bled for them, well, they get to burn right along with the poor sap that was dumb enough to get caught.

"And I am not willing to let you burn when they find me again."

**IV.**

Cassidy is starving. Literally starving.

It's only come to this a few times in his very long life, and none of them have been as torturous as this. He can smell Jesse setting up the church for sermon from his mattress in the attic, can hear the echoes of his heartbeat all the way up though the belfry, can damn near taste the blood in the air from the wound where the preacher cut himself shaving. He'd give anything for a taste, just a taste....

He rolls over and thrusts his hand into the sunlight streaming in the one open window, holds it there, lets the flames eat at his skin until the thought of drinking Jesse dry is driven from his mind. When he puts it out, the fire has eaten away most of the skin, and he knows that now is the time. Now is when he leaves Jesse Custer and the town of Annville, Texas in peace.

**V.**

"I tried to tell you, Jesse," Emily says, dusting off the top of the piano. "Cassidy was no good. I'm not surprised he just up and disappeared."

"Yeah," Jesse sighs, too strung out on what he won't call heartbreak to be mad at her. "But I am."

**+I.**

It's been six months. _Six months, twelve days, and a smattering of hours_ , chimes the voice in the back of his head. Six months since he disappeared in the middle of the night because he couldn't look one man in the face and wish him goodbye.

Cassidy hates himself sometimes.

He misses Jesse Custer like the whiskey he told himself he couldn't have until this was over. He misses Jesse Custer like he supposes some would miss a limb. He misses Jesse Custer like he misses his mam's singing.

He misses Jesse Custer like he misses sunlight.

On day one hundred-ninety-four, Proinsias Cassidy crosses into Annville, Texas city limits just after sunset, and it feels like coming home. He's driving a rental he actually rented, and he's wearing clothing he actually purchased. He's filled out some, regular meals will do that to a person, and his hair is a little longer on top. All around, he feels like a new man.

Cassidy pulls into the long drive that leads to the church, laughing at the road sign.

The church is dark, but the preacher's truck is parked outside, and that's exactly what he'd hoped for. Cassidy throws his rental into park, and slides out of the car, instinctively fingering the key he nabbed from the church closet and never returned. The door opens smoothly, and Cass doesn't let himself hesitate before slipping in and closing the door behind him.

"Sermon is tomorrow," Jesse Custer calls from somewhere near the pulpit. "I thought I locked those doors..."

"Aye, you did, Padre, but I never returned my key."

The preacher doesn't turn, just freezes where he stands, face turned towards the cross on the back wall. Cassidy walks towards him, steps loud enough to be heard in case the other man wants to flee. Cass hopes he won't.

He doesn't.

"You left," Jesse says.

"Aye."

"Why'd you come back?"

"Same reason I stayed so long to begin with."

"That," the preacher says, dropping the bible in his hand onto the closest pew, "was the worst come on I've ever heard. One hundred and nineteen years old, and that's all the game you got?"

Cassidy snorts, reaches out, and pulls the preacher to him, slides an arm around his shoulder, lets the other linger at his waist.

"I've missed you, Jesse Custer," he tells the man quietly.

Jesse, only minutely shorter, turns his head into Cass's neck and breathes a sigh of relief, hands coming to rest on the taller man's hips.

"I wasn't sure you'd actually come back."

"Now, look here, Padre," Cass growls, pushing on Jesse until the dark haired man takes a step back. "I've done a lot of things in my short life as a blood sucker. I've murdered, and I've drank and drugged, and I've taken your Lord's name in vain. I've thieved, and I've lied, and I have been an absolute shite of a person, but," Jesse grunts when his back hit the wall behind the pulpit; he hadn't even been aware that Cass was still shoving him back, "but I have never wanted to come home to someone like I wanted to come home to you, Jesse Custer."

Cass leans in to whisper in Jesse's ear, and is pleased by the hitch in the preacher's breathing.

"I have missed you like sunlight, Jesse, and I didn't know I was missing sunlight until I couldn't follow you through it on a Sunday morning. I have missed you like I didn't know I could with a heart I was sure was dead as the rest of me.

"Don't you ever doubt I'll come back to you."

"You can't promise that," Jesse whispers, "not with those - "

Cassidy's grin is vicious.

"Where do you think I've been the last few months, Padre? I've got supplies to last a year, and no inclination at leavin' town. You're bloody stuck with me."

"They're..."

"Dead," Cassidy confirms. "Whole lot of them. They'll never touch a hair of your pretty head."

"I wasn't worried about me," Jesse grumbles.

"I know, love, but I was."

Jesse smiles.

"Now," Cassidy says. "Where can a fella get a decent _drink_ 'round here?"

 


End file.
